The present disclosure generally relates to data routing and forwarding, and more specifically, to techniques for improving efficiency and robustness for configuring, deploying and managing Customer Premises Equipment (CPE).
Traditionally, CPE are devices that provide hardware based solutions for facilitating certain network based services for the customer. In some instances, the CPE provides the demarcation point for the network operator for providing their services to the customer. In other words, the CPE acts as an extension of the network operator, residing at the customer premises and facilitates services provided by the network operator to the customer.
CPE may generally refer to devices such as telephones, routers, switches, residential gateways (RG), set-top boxes, fixed mobile convergence products, home networking adaptors and internet access gateways that enable consumers to access communications service providers' services and distribute them around their house via a LAN (Local Area Network), digital subscriber line (DSL) or other broadband Internet routers, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) base stations or other systems used by particular service providers. Also included are key telephone systems and most private branch exchanges. Traditionally, this term referred to equipment placed at the customer's end of the telephone line and usually owned by the telephone company. Today, almost any end-user equipment can be called customer premises equipment and it can be owned by the customer or by the provider.
Although, a CPE is discussed throughout the specification, in several embodiments, a network device may also be used instead of a CPE to perform several embodiments discussed herein. Furthermore, in some instances, the CPE may itself perform the functions of a network device, such as forwarding of network packets.